Irvine Vics boss Dougie MacDuff insists he's redeemed himself after first season from hell

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Dougie MacDuff admits he staked his reputation on being able to transform Irvine Vics’ fortunes.It’s almost 12 months to the day since the veteran gaffer gave himself an ultimatum with absolutely no wiggle room.‘Judge me next year’, was MacDuff’s battle cry after a fraught first six months in the Vics Park hotseat yielded just one win in 23 league games.It looked like a long, arduous road to redemption – even to the least cynical of observers – but MacDuff ignored all the outside noise and concentrated on the monumental task in hand.Compare and contrast a year on and the turnaround has been quite phenomenal.Vics haven’t lost a league game since the opening day of the season and sit fourth in the WoSFL Third Division knowing they’ll go top if they win their games in hand.You won’t hear MacDuff entertain any talk of promotion just yet but he admits he feels vindicated after a fairly joyless first season in charge.He said: “I made the statement ‘Judge me next year’ on December 30.

It’s a headline I think about all the time.“I’ve no doubt people were saying ‘he’s no chance’ but you need to have belief and confidence in your own ability and I’ve always had that.“I knew when I came here that my main priority was just to get a team on the park.

I had to bring in boys who weren’t wanted by other clubs. That’s not me being disrespectful, that’s just the way it was.“It was really tough.

We won two games that whole season. It was hard to go home every Saturday. I live and breathe football so it was always playing on my mind.“I knew though that if I could get the players I wanted in, we could turn things around.